Speaking to the state media yesterday, Parliament Speaker and PAP MP Tan Chuan Jin defended the government’s negligence and claimed that the infection cluster is not a result of the poor living conditions:
“The massive outbreak of coronavirus cases among migrant workers in dormitories cannot be attributed to bad living conditions alone, even if there are abysmal examples… It was not about “white-washing” cases of “abysmal” dorm conditions, but one should not generalise that all living conditions are as such.”
The former Manpower Minister who was demoted in 2015 said the virus is to be blamed for being “highly contagious”:
“Rather, the highly contagious nature of the coronavirus and the fact that dorms involve groups of people living in close quarters are more likely to have contributed to the spread.”